A Day to Remember
by nightrunner
Summary: A Bounty Hunter goes to collect... PG13 for a scene of intense violence ... RR


__

Wow, its been a long time since I've done anything herenot long enough to forget about the happy little disclaimer though. Star Wars doesn't belong to me, nor does the name Nightrunner or the Bounty Hunter's Guild. Also, every character used in this story is entirely original and is used with permission. The character that Nightrunner is based upon is entirely my creation. Feel free to ask me for his history, the Bounty Hunter's Guild, etc.

----===={****}====----

Nightrunner crouched in the silent shadows, waiting for his prey to appear. He caught a scent on the wind, and started to count to himself. Moments later, he could see a shadow approaching cautiously. Jake Marts, a young Daichi Hunter, stalked by Nightrunner's hiding place with his weapon raised high. Without any warning, Nightrunner jumped out and struck Jake in the back with his force pike, dropping him to the ground. The kid cried out, but to no avail. Nightrunner had already leapt up behind him and held a knife to his throat.

"You're dead now, Marts," is all the quiet Jawa said. Nightrunner let go and let Jake collapse to the ground. He stood there for a moment before giving Jake a hand up. Marts took it, grateful. "You didn't do to bad, Marts, but you still pass by those dark spaces without checking. Stop doing that, and you may just live."

Jake nodded and thanked Nightrunner before heading back to his quarters. As he left, Coranel, the new Chief of Daichi, entered the training room. Nightrunner sighed as he started to stretch. Cor walked over to him and said, "Nice work training those little people. They're not too bad, but they can always get better"

"Kind of like me," Nightrunner said. "Speaking of which, I'm going to be gone for a few days. I got an interesting contract that I'm going to go do."

Coranel, not surprised, said, "Right-o. Well, just to tell you, I'm looking for a Right Arm now, and you're a contender. Apply if you want. Anyway, good luck with your hunt." With that, he turned around and left the dark room.

"Right Arm, eh? I might just do that" Nightrunner said to himself.

--=={**}==--

Days later, Nightrunner set his ship down on the landing pad designated for him, high in the sky of Coruscant. While he was in transit, he had compiled an application for Right Arm and had sent it back to Coranel. Now, he was going to focus on his target: Faul Veras. Faul was wanted on several accounts of smuggling, slavery, piracy and larceny, or so claimed the contact that Nightrunner had memorized.

He followed typical procedure by going to the nearest bar and making inquiries about his target. With some credits going to the right people, Nightrunner soon had the information he was looking for. Faul had last been seen in the lower sections of the city-planet, gambling away any money he had made recently. Nightrunner grabbed some weapons, namely his Cadre Blade, his twin blaster pistols and his E-11 holstered at his side. Nightrunner descended into the dark and dank recesses of the undercity.

It didn't take long for Nightrunner to track Faul down; all he had to do was go to the largest looking bar. As he approached, he saw Faul smoking some illicit substance outside the bar. The Jawa loosened his blade in its sheath, ready for a fight. However, Faul didn't even notice him coming. Well, he didn't notice until a passing droid let out a cry of alarm: "Oh my, that Jawa has weapons! Somebody apprehend him!"

Nightrunner growled and drew his pistol. In one clean motion, the droid's midsection was completely destroyed, smoking as it hit the ground. Unfortunately for him, Faul _did_ take notice then and bolted into the bar, hoping to lose his pursuer in the crowds. Nightrunner slipped the pistol back into its hiding spot before chasing after Faul. 

He entered the bar and immediately froze in his tracks. Faul was standing 2 meters away, surrounded by bodyguards sporting some nasty looking rifles. Nighty did a quick count and totaled 8 guards around Faul, but he knew without looking that there were 8 more spread throughout the crowd.

"Leave now, Jawa, and you can go back to whatever slime hole you crawled out of alive."

"Tempting offer," Nightrunner responded. "But I doubt that's going to happen." With just a flicker of motion, both of his pistols were resting in his hands, even though Faul couldn't see it. As he slowly looked around the bar without moving his head, he noticed that everyone in the bar was silent, staring at the confrontation. 

Suddenly, with only the slight tensing of muscles as a warning, Nightrunner leapt to the side, bringing his pistols to bear. Time seemed to slow down as he pulled the triggers, sending red bolts of death towards his enemies. Almost immediately they brought their rifles into position, making Nightrunner twist in midair and land on his back, skidding away from Faul, still firing shot after shot towards his enemies. Out of nowhere came the screams of those bystanders still in the bar. Obviously, Faul's men decided to shoot through the crowd to get at the Jawa. Without realizing it, Nightrunner responded in kind, using the innocent crowd as human shields to save him from destruction.

__

Screams in the night The thought ran unexpected through Nightrunner's head, leaving as soon as it had come.

Nightrunner rolled to his feet and took off running close beside a wall. As soon as he got an opening, he jumped at the wall and kicked off of it, firing his pistols over the crowd at Faul. The guards converging on his position from inside the crowd kept firing as they tracked the Jawa, mowing down the bystanders in front on them. Some of the civilians had managed to get away from the carnage and escape into the street, but the entrance to the bar was quickly clogging up. As Nightrunner sailed through the air, he saw a grenade fly in his general direction. Nightrunner hit the ground and rolled away from the effects of the grenade, but those bystanders still attempting to escape were not so lucky. The frag grenade exploded, killing 10 people instantly. 

__

Let the bodies hit the floor Another random thought coursing through Nighty's brain. As if following those directions, Nightrunner opened up, blasting at his enemies but lost in the bloodlust upon him now. Anybody, anybody, caught between him and Faul were dead men walking.

Finally, it was over. Nightrunner stood there, panting. He didn't know how much time had passed during the slaughter, but now, he was alone. His robes had been burned countless times during the firefight, but Nighty barely noticed. Slowly, he turned in a circle, looking at the carnage he had unleashed. He was amazed about what had happened when he had just let himself go completely. 

__

Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums Nightrunner snapped back to attention as he heard the sirens of police growing nearer. He noticed for the first time that sometime during the fight, he had emptied the power packs on his pistols and had drained his E-11 nearly half of the way. As he turned to leave, he saw his Cadre Blade sticking out of the throat of Faul Veras. He blinked, not knowing when he had drawn the deadly weapon. Shrugging, he walked over to it, drew it out of the corpse on the ground and sheathed the blade.

Nightrunner made his way back up through the undercity, avoiding security teams that were swarming over the bar. After some time, Nightrunner boarded his ship and was cleared for take off. He sat back in his chair as his R2 unit fed to coordinates for home to the navcomputer. Just before he pulled the hyperdrive levers, he saw that his comm unit was blinking, telling Nighty that he had a new message. He played the message and saw a holo of Cor appear. 

"Hey Nighty," Cor said. "Just thought you'd like to know that you got the job. Congrats! And you can bet that I'll have work for you once you get back here. Anyways, I'm heading out to the Cantina now, but we'll catch you later."

Nightrunner settled back into his chair, smiling. He pulled the levers and fell into a deep sleep as his ship accelerated to faster-than-light speeds.

****

HMSTR/Nightrunner/Daichi/BHG-CRA

----===={****}====----

__

If there's enough positive reaction to this, I'll get around to posting all the other work I've done for the Guild involving the character Nightrunner.


End file.
